Learning a Foreign Language

This journey is coming to an end. Yesterday was the last day that I worked on my Japanese studies. To be honest, these last six weeks have flown by so fast, but I feel like I accomplished a lot. My goal was to finish Hiragana and finish around 10 chapters in my speaking book(Conversational Japanese). I was able to accomplish both of these goals. I finished learning how to write the 46 Hiragana this week with the last group of eight characters. I also did chapters 8, 9, and 10 in the Conversation Japanese book. Chapter 8 went over many essential Japanese greetings. Chapter 9 went over what to say when you meet people for the first time and how to properly start conversations. Chapter 10 went over how to talk about yourself, such as personal information, hobbies, family, etc. In these chapters, I learned about mannerisms and how to be polite and friendly when trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks Japanese. I know how to say greetings such as, "hello," ...

It has now been 5 weeks since I started this project. This week I did the fourth group of ten Hiragana characters. I am almost done with Hiragana! Next week I will be finished learning Hiragana, but I will need to continue practicing writing them. The book has many exercises that have you writing words and sentences with the characters. I am not having a hard time remembering the characters because they are pretty simple. Some are similar, though, so I sometimes write the wrong one down. In the conversation book, I did chapters 5, 6, and 7. These chapters were pretty long. Chapter 5 went over conjugation, chapter 6 went over more grammar essentials, and chapter 7 went over numbers. The grammar is kind of challenging because it is different than English. I learned that when we put -ing on the end of a word, Japanese puts -te on the end of a word. For example, watching is translated as mi Japanese and to make it "watching", you add te , so it would be mi-ti. To say "...

This week flew by! I had such a busy week I wasn't able to get as much done as I did for week 3. I found a couple times this week to work on writing, learning phrases, and work in the conversation book. On busy weeks like this, it is harder fitting learning Japanese into my schedule. It takes time depending on how much I want to accomplish. It takes around 30 minutes to an hour for me each day. I wasn't able to study everyday this week though. In my writing books, I learned another 10 Hiragana. In one book it makes me write the character around 8 times in the space provided. In the other book, it has me write the character around 10 times. So I first write each character I'm on 18 times and then move on to the next. At the end of the ten or so characters there is a review where I write Japanese words with the character that I learned. I have also been reviewing the 10 characters that I learned in week 3. I am now on chapter 5 in the book that is teaching me how to sp...

This is a proposal I wrote for Composition II class. It was due today and I am supposed to add it to my blog, so enjoy. A Proposal for MACC Kirksville Campus to Add a Foreign Language Class Problem             The problem with the classes MACC Kirksville Higher Education Center offers, is that it does not include foreign language classes. When I was planning my fall 2017 course schedule with my advisor, I was expecting to choose a foreign language class. Much to my surprise, I found out the Kirksville campus does not offer any foreign language classes. I was so surprised I thought about changing colleges. I think foreign language classes are important. In high school, my favorite classes were Spanish class, Geography, and World History. I love learning about other cultures and foreign languages. When I took Spanish, I saw that the class really brought students together and because of the fun class trips ...